


and back to the start

by llassah



Category: BBC Historical Farm TV RPF
Genre: Intercrural Sex, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:13:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llassah/pseuds/llassah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>They celebrate Christmas a month too early. They exchange gifts and joke about mistletoe, sing carols and walk to the church in the dark, lamps lighting their way. Their shoulders brush together as they walk, and their fingers touch as Peter passes him a prayer book, and these little touches should be rationed out through the day. Surely he’ll have reached his allowance soon. Surely this will all end.</em>
</p><p>On building fences, candlelight and pretending for a living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and back to the start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Indybaggins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indybaggins/gifts).



“Good honest work,” Peter says, tipping his chair back as he sprawls, eyes lidded lazily. “Nothing like it.”

Alex keeps himself from staring too blatantly at the line of his throat, the chest hair just poking above the collar of his shirt. “I did most of the work,” he murmurs, fingers busy with the bridle he’s mending, the worn leather warm in his hands. He keeps his head down to hide his smile as Peter blusters, because he knows the way his hands are moving, knows the jut of his chin as he makes a point. All of this is so very familiar.

The light from the candle is hardly enough to see by, so he’s having to really squint to see the holes for the stitches, the dark thread lost on the black leather with only the shine from the needle to guide him. He could do this every day. Not just for the cameras. Just do it for the love of it, to grow the food to survive, make the things that they need with their hands. Working together, living by the seasons. Building something together, a whole life. But then, he’s a romantic. Or something like it.

“Are you even listening?”

Peter sounds amused, a little. Alex looks up, unable to keep himself from smiling. “Not a bit,” he says, just to see Peter grin.

“He never listens,” Ruth says, winks at him. He winks back.

Peter huffs, but subsides. “Here, give me the other end. It’ll go quicker with two,” he says, shuffling his chair around so they’re next to each other. His fingers are deft and sure as they thread the needle, getting the waxed thread through first time. They work side by side, heads bent, shoulders touching, breathing together in time.

*

Peter loves the nightshirts they are given to wear. He always gets into bed on the left side. He turns the pillow over before he lies on it. When he’s about to drop off to sleep, he rubs his foot from side to side on the bedsheets, making a rhythmic swishing sound. He only snores when he has a cold; otherwise, he breathes deeply and slowly, curled in on himself, cocooned from the world. In summer, he kicks off the sheets, the nightshirt rucked up to the tops of his thighs, sweat making his hair stick to his forehead. In summer, he’s irritable, slower to wake, petulant as a child.

Odd, knowing that about someone you aren’t even in a relationship with. Odd, to have them know as much about you.

“G’night,” he whispers. Peter mumbles something in response. Alex closes his eyes and waits for his foot to start swishing back and forth on the sheets, soothing them both into sleep.

*

“Ease it right a bit—there. Brilliant, mate. It’s in.”

“Only twenty more to do,” Peter says, but he’s smiling, too. They still have the willow to weave in, but they’ve got the beginnings of a good fence going. There’s a chill in the air, their breaths dragonsmoking as they work, steam rising from their skin where it’s bare. Peter’s hair is plastered flat to his face, a streak of grime across his forehead. His shirt is sticking to his chest, his back. Alex wants to bury his nose in Peter’s armpit and inhale. He wants to do a lot of things, and that’s rather the problem, because his hands are sweating and his throat’s dry, and he’s eternally grateful for the length of his shirt. “Alright?” Peter asks.

Alex nods, picks up another stake. Peter swings the mallet back easily, and they fall back into their old rhythm, filling the air with idle bickering until Alex feels less like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin.

*

Here’s how it would go: they’d go up to their bedroom, wash briefly with the jug and basin. Brush their teeth, because there’s a limit to authenticity. And Alex would sit down on the edge of Peter’s bed. And he’d say “shall we?” and his hands would be shaking, and he’d want, and Peter would smile, slowly—

No. It would be in the orchard, in spring. In the blossoms. They’d kiss as the lambs bleated in the field, and—

Summer, down by the river. They would wash each other off, their hands mapping out the planes of each other’s backs—

In the morning, before either of them were awake, and Alex would press an absent-minded kiss on Peter’s forehead, say “good morning, love,” and then they’d just—

In Alex’s office, after filming. They’d fuck on the desk, in their own clothes. Go their separate ways, and meet up for the next series, and maybe—

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he’d say, and everything would stop. And everything would change. So he looks at Peter when he can, and he allows himself to feel as much desire as he is able to handle, and he smiles, and talks, and works, sleeps and eats and wants and wants and wants. And it’s fine. Really, it’s fine.

*

“Do you ever wish this was real?” Peter asks, lying on his back on the straw, his hands linked behind his head. Alex shrugs.

“I’m pretty fond of antibiotics,” he says, pulling a piece of straw out of the bale he’s sitting on, using it to tickle at the side of Peter’s neck. “I reckon we’ve got the best of both worlds, here. Now a time machine, well.”

Peter swats at his neck until Alex throws the straw away, huffs out a laugh. “Don’t tell me, you’d use it to look at rudimentary farming methods. Every other bugger would kill Hitler with it.”

“I’d want to be a time observer. On the outside, looking in. I’d want to know stuff. Changing it is—god, we just built a pigsty, I don’t have enough brain left for this.” Peter props himself up on his elbows, looks at him, one of his legs crooked out to the side. “You look like Jayne Mansfield,” Alex says, dodges the fistful of hay Peter throws. “I think we’ve just found the DVD cover.”

“You only want me for my body,” Peter says, and something in Alex goes very still and very quiet, feels like a rabbit caught in headlights. He laughs a second too late, and for a moment, Peter’s eyes seem far too wise for comfort. The moment passes, though.

*

This is how it happens: he wakes up before dawn, hard and wanting. He eases his hand down under the covers, shuffles a little until his nightshirt is up around his hips. He closes his eyes, keeping his breathing even, wishes that there was something here to make the slide easier as he wraps his hand around his dick, using his thumb to spread what precome there is. He’s quiet, so quiet and careful, bites down on his free hand to keep himself from making any noise, and he stays quiet as he imagines a grip on the nape of his neck, a heavy weight on top of him, pressing him down into the mattress, making everything just the right side of painful, and he suddenly hears movement from the other bed and he stops breathing and—

“Keep going,” Peter whispers. “Keep touching yourself,” and hell, that’s enough. Alex lets out a high whine as he comes, shuddering out his orgasm, dick twitching in his slackened grip. “Fuck, that was—you nutted off so fast, god, you must have been desperate. I want to see next time. Bet you make all sorts of noises when you wank usually, yeah? You all needy?”

And god help him, he agrees.

*

The next night, he lies on top of the sheets, fucks up into his fist as Peter watches, the candlelight playing across his face. Peter asks him what he thinks about when he wanks, and Alex doesn’t answer.

The night after, Peter sits down in the chair in the corner, legs spread. “I want you to watch me,” he says, so Alex sits on his hands and watches as Peter slicks his hand up, gives himself the longest, messiest handjob, his thighs straining as he teases himself, head thrown back, hips tilted forwards. He can’t quite breathe he’s so hard. When Peter comes, Alex feels like he’s going to cry, because he didn’t even get to touch him once. Peter calls him a good boy, tells him to play with his hole until he comes.

In the morning, they film a segment on ploughing, and everything feels so normal it’s as if it never happened.

*

“Keep—fuck—keep your legs together,” Peter mutters, his hands tight on Alex’s shoulders. Alex nods into the pillow, tries to stop himself from humping the mattress as Peter slicks up his dick with some KY he found lord knows where. “Always wanted to do this,” he says, then he presses his lips to the nape of Alex’s neck and presses him into the mattress, resting his full weight on Alex’s back. Peter’s dick slides up and over his hole first, and he can’t quite suppress his needy whine at that, at the thought of it. “Ssh, this is better for now,” he says, and he presses in again, and this time his dick slides in between Alex’s thighs. Alex bites down onto the pillow, his toes curling as he is surrounded, pinned down and rutted against, and it feels a little bit like he’s just there to be used, like he’s there just for Peter’s pleasure, like the way Peter’s dick feels so amazing sliding over his balls is just incidental. “God, you’re so—fuck, your _arse_ ,” Peter mutters. “I could do this all day.”

“Please, oh God, please,” Alex babbles, and he closes his eyes tight as Peter bites down on his shoulder, grunting as his thrusts speed up, his breath hot and damp on Alex’s skin. He wants to make all kinds of promises. He bites down again, to keep himself quiet, follows Peter into orgasm at the first hot pulse of spunk on his skin.

*

They celebrate Christmas a month too early. They exchange gifts and joke about mistletoe, sing carols and walk to the church in the dark, lamps lighting their way. Their shoulders brush together as they walk, and their fingers touch as Peter passes him a prayer book, and these little touches should be rationed out through the day. Surely he’ll have reached his allowance soon. Surely this will all end.

That night, Peter pins his hips down and gives him the messiest blowjob he’s ever had, lets him twine his fingers in his hair as he swallows him down to the root. “Where—fuck—where did you learn that?” he asks, choked and awed in the afterglow. Peter shrugs, finishes smearing his spunk into Alex’s skin.

“Natural talent, mate. Mind if I bunk with you tonight?”

So they share, pressed up close in Alex’s bed, come drying on their skins.

*

They haven’t kissed once. Alex realises just as they’re wrapping up, filming a few more fillers, some stuff for the trailer. They’re leaving the farm, and they haven’t even kissed. Last night, he'd rimmed Peter until he begged, his toes curled tightly, body a long line of tension. The night before, Peter had fucked him, slowly so that the mattress didn’t creak, and then they’d stayed like that until morning, Peter’s dick softening inside him. But they haven’t kissed.

“You okay?” Ruth asks. Alex shrugs, because he honestly doesn’t know. Peter raises his eyebrows at him, and he shakes his head slightly. It’s fine.

They shake hands when they part ways. Peter looks like he wants to say something, but Alex keeps on talking, keeps things light, cheerful because he doesn’t want kindness, doesn’t want to be let down gently. It’s okay.

*

When he gets back to his flat, he gets blind drunk and watches porn, every light in the place as bright as it will go. He eats Chinese takeaway out of the carton in his boxers, and he sleeps on a proper bloody mattress. It’s fine. He’s fine.

*

Here’s how it happens: it’s raining cats and dogs and he’s late home, and he’s forgotten his umbrella, and he’s tired of people asking if he’s lost weight, tired of people asking about filming, just tired of everything. And he climbs up the five flights of stairs to his floor with knees that ache, juggling his satchel so he can find his keys as he drips water all over the carpet. And someone grabs his arm and spins him around and he pulls his arm back to punch—

“You’re a fucking arsehole, you know that?” Peter snarls, pressing him back against the door. “You can’t just—”

“Can’t what?” Alex spits out, still struggling.

“Can’t leave. Can’t just—act like it didn’t mean anything. I mean, god, a handshake, a fucking _handshake_ and a chipper ‘see you next year’, you fucking _dick—_ ”

and he surges forwards, and he didn’t know you could kiss someone angrily, but he pours everything into it, everything bitter, every ounce of longing and Peter's using just the right amount of violence, just the right amount of _feeling_. Enough to make him wonder about it all, about the shoulder claps and the handshakes, the easy banter and the quiet moments. It's enough to make him hope that they could make something out of this, built on a solid foundation of days and nights spent together, living together before they even knew each other. And perhaps they've done everything the wrong way round, but then they’ve done everything arse backwards, right from the start. It’s time travel, after all.


End file.
